


The Great Bear Fiasco (or, A Tantrum for the Ages)

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: even the mistakes aren't really mistakes at all [3]
Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Baby mad scientists, Clayton is not a very good dad, Gen, Kinga starts a fight, Max doesn't get paid enough to deal with this crap from both Forresters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 16:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16580018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Kinga is determined to grow her bear army on Pay Your Age day at Build-A-Bear, and ropes her father and her second banana into her scheme. Asking her to wait in line goes... about as well as you'd expect.





	The Great Bear Fiasco (or, A Tantrum for the Ages)

**Author's Note:**

> Pay Your Age Day at Build-a-Bear is a real thing. It probably wasn't a real thing in 1993, but *handwaves* don't worry about it.

"Now, sweetie, I know this is a big day for you," Clayton said as he pulled a brush through his daughter's hair. Kinga squirmed under his less-than-careful attention. "Your bear army is coming together nicely, and today you can get two more."

"Three," she said, and tilted her head back to give him a winning smile. "Cause you're getting one too."

"I'm not about to pay forty-something dollars for a stuffed animal," he said, and she rolled her eyes.

"Duh, Daddy, that's way too much. You can just pay the normal price! And I'll get one for six dollars, and Max will get one for sixteen dollars, and then I'll have three big bears!"

"How much will I pay for yours and Max's?" He'd been trying to get her ready to crush the other kindergarteners as soon as she arrived at school in the fall, and she wrinkled her nose and started counting on her fingers.

"Six and six is twelve, and ten is twenty-two?"

" _Very_ good," he said, and started pulling her hair into pigtails. "You're a smart girl."

"Well yeah, I'm a Forrester," she said, and the instant he finished tying her hair up she bounded out of her chair and ran into Max's room, leaping onto the bed and its occupant. "Max! Wake up! It's bear day!"

"Oof," Max said, but instead of shoving her off he wrapped his arms around her to prevent her from bouncing on him. "Is that today?" It was all she'd been talking about for days. As soon as she heard about the Pay Your Age day at Build-a-Bear, every other word out of her mouth was about her bear army.

"We have to get there soon! I want to be the first one in line!" He glanced at his bedside clock and rubbed his eyes. That explained why she was waking him up at five in the morning. "You're helping me out because you're the best second banana in the world," she added, and he smiled and tugged one of her pigtails.

"You think so?"

"Uh-huh."

"Better than my dad?"

"Oh yeah. No doubt."

"Thanks, Kinga." He nudged her off the bed so he could get up and yawned as he sat up. "You're all ready already, huh?"

"Yeah! Hurry up so we can leave!"

"Get out of my room then," he said, and she darted back out to find her father drinking coffee and looking marginally less bleary than he'd been five minutes before.

"Where's Max?" he asked.

"He's getting dressed," she said, and came over to steal the mug from her father's hands and take a sip. He scowled at her and took it back.

"Don't drink coffee, it'll stunt your growth."

"Nuh-uh. I'm gonna be as tall as you."

"Not if you keep stealing my coffee."

"But it tastes good."

"Are you kidding? He drinks it black, it tastes like water that hates you," Max said as he came into the kitchen, picking her up around the waist and swinging her around. She laughed maniacally.

"I like it!"

"It's going to stunt your growth."

"You don't drink coffee," she pointed out mercilessly, and Max sighed and put her back down.

"That's uncalled for."

"Are you ready?" Clayton asked, and Max grabbed a pack of pop-tarts off the counter and nodded. "All right, let's get this show on the road." As they walked out to the car, Kinga started a weird sing-songy chant that left both her father and her friend looking askance at her.

"Bears bears bears! Big bears, scary bears, bears that eat people up! Bears bears bears bears bears!"

"I don't think these bears will eat people," Max mumbled through a mouthful of pop-tart as he opened the car door for her. "I think they're probably going to be pretty cute and cuddly."

"Until I put blood on their mouths and claws on their paws," Kinga said with relish.

"Good problem solving," Clayton said. "If you don't inspire terror as you are, you just have to learn how to amp it up."

"I'm gonna be so terrifying," Kinga chirped brightly, fumbling with her seat belt until Max clicked it for her. "I'm gonna be the scariest."

"You're not very scary," Max pointed out. "You're too cute to be scary."

"That's why I'm assembling a bear army, duh! Come on, Max, keep up. You have to be a better second banana than your dad." Max scowled at her as he buckled in next to her, and she rolled her eyes dramatically.

"You already said I was better. No take-backsies."

"Oh, _fine_. But you can be better than him and still stink." Clayton didn't even try to repress his laughter, and Max scowled a little more on his dad's behalf. "But you don't stink," she added. "You have to help me be scary, though! That's part of your job."

"That's a very big job..." Max leaned over and tickled her side, and she shrieked with laughter and flailed at his hand ineffectively. "Because you are adorable."

"Can't I be adorable and terrifying at the same time?"

"You'll have to work on it," Clayton said. "I've never put any research into concatenating those two factors."

"I can pull it off," Kinga said. "I can practice with the bears before I try it with myself."

"That's my girl! Always do a trial run on something expendable before you apply it to yourself."

"...or to me," Max added, and Clayton aimed a measuring glance at him through the rear-view mirror. "I'm not expendable."

"Your father isn't expendable either," Clayton said, and Max's brows shot up. "Or he's the perfect blend of expendable and immortal."

"Does that mean I'm immortal too?"

"What's immortal?" Kinga asked.

"It means you can't die," Clayton said, and Kinga snorted.

"Frank's not immortal. You kill him all the time."

"But he doesn't stay dead," Clayton pointed out, and he shot another glance at Max. "Honestly, Max is just too young to test yet."

"I'd rather you not test me at all, ever, regardless of my age," Max said uncomfortably. "I'm not fair game just because I become an adult. I'm not _your_ second banana, I'm Kinga's."

"I don't want to kill you," Kinga said, reaching over to pat Max's arm. "I like you alive. And Frank always gets _super_ grumpy when he's alive again after Daddy kills him. I don't want to make you unhappy like that."

"Thank you, Kinga, that means a lot to me," Max said, tugging her closer pigtail fondly. "I think we can make scientific breakthroughs without any of that death stuff."

"We can practice on bears," Kinga said. "Since I'm going to need them anyways."

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Max said. "If you think my dad is grumpy when he gets brought back to life, imagine what a 600 pound grizzly bear is going to be like."

"Maybe we can just practice on some other humans."

"I don't think you should kill other humans either."

"Well jeez Max, what do you want me to do? I gotta kill someone, don't I?"

"No? Why would you?"

"Because I'm gonna be a mad scientist, so I have to-- I have to be mad, right? I have to be more mad than an angry bear."

"That's not the meaning of the word 'mad' in the phrase 'mad scientist'," Clayton said, turning the car into the mall parking lot, which was basically empty except for a few cars right around the closest entrance to the Build-a-Bear. "It means insane, not angry."

"Oh... are you insane?" Kinga asked.

"As soon as you start interacting with normal people you'll see the answer to that question," Max said. "Yeah, he totally is."

"All the best scientists are at least a little crazy," Clayton said. "Come on, we're here." Kinga got herself unbuckled and bolted for the mall entrance, trailed a little ways back by Max and Clayton. "Max..."

"Yes?" He glanced over his shoulder at Clayton while they walked, and Clayton fixed him with a serious look over the rim of his glasses.

"I'm relying on you to keep her in line while we're here."

"In line like queued up or in line like behaving?"

"Don't sass me, kid." As soon as Max turned his attention forward he rolled his eyes, not wanting to earn himself a smack for non-verbal sassing, and he sped up a bit to catch up with his charge.

"Kinga! Slow down!" She didn't. He hadn't really expected her to. He caught up to her at the foot of the escalator and let out a sigh. "All right, speed demon. You have to be on your best behavior while we're lined up, okay? No terrorizing the other kids, no cutting in line, and no backtalking your dad."

"But I deserve to be first in line because I'm the best."

"That's not fair to the people who got here before us."

"So? Who cares what's fair? I'm the best so I should get what I want." Max sighed heavily and put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from running off when they got to the top of the escalator.

"That's not how the world works. I know you get whatever you want when we're at home, but you're starting school soon and if you don't learn how to wait your turn and share, nobody's going to like you."

"You like me."

"Of course I like you. That doesn't mean you're easy to get along with, or that everyone will like you. I'm more patient than people your age, for one thing. And you're my favorite, for another thing."

"And I'm the best."

"And you're the best when you're not being a little monster."

"I'm not a monster," Kinga protested as they came up to the end of the line. There were about twenty kids and parents lined up ahead of them. "I'm the queen of the bears."

"Not yet you aren't."

"Then I'm the queen of Deep 13!"

"Oh, you think so, do you?" Clayton had just caught up to them, and he gave his daughter's pigtail a tug. "That's princess, little missy. I'm the reigning monarch of the lab right now."

"Does that mean Frank is the queen of Deep 13?" Clayton's jaw dropped and Max stuffed half his hand into his mouth to keep from bursting out into attention-grabbing laughter. Kinga just gave them both a bemused look and a shrug. "What? Isn't he? He's the second most important person, right?"

"That's not how it works, sweetheart," Clayton said. Max expended the effort to reign in his hilarity and dropped his hand, shaking his head.

"Queens are ladies."

"Always?"

"Yeah. Queens are ladies and kings are men."

"Then why am I Kinga?" That was a good question as far as Max could tell. Both kids looked up at Clayton expectantly.

"It's-- it's an old family name," he said. "It means 'brave'."

"How did you know I would be brave when I was a baby? Babies aren't brave, they're just babies."

"You don't name someone because of what they are, you name them for what you hope they'll be," Clayton said.

"What does my name mean?" Max asked, and Clayton smirked slightly.

"Maximilian means 'greatest'. Your father had high hopes for you."

"Well, he was right, because Max is the greatest," Kinga said loyally, wrapping her arms around Max's arm. "What does your name mean, Daddy?"

"It doesn't really mean anything," Clayton said. "It's the name of a place."

"Didn't Grandma hope anything for you?"

"Not likely," Clayton muttered under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose briefly. "Your grandmother has no poetry in her soul."

"Do you?" Kinga asked. Clayton's mustache twitched.

"More than she does, anyways."

"Do I?"

"We'll find out as you get older."

"Does Max?"

"Yes," Max said. "I do."

"How do you know?" Kinga asked, looking up at him wide-eyed.

"Well... I write poetry, so it has to be in my soul somewhere," he reasoned.

"You do? What do you write about?"

"Oh, I don't know... Mythology. Nature. Magic cards that look really cool. You."

"You write poetry about me?" She looked delighted. "Is it about how cool and beautiful and perfect I am?"

"...sure," he said, and she didn't notice the hesitation. "Of course it is."

"Then I approve," she said. Clayton gave Max a skeptical look and Max shrugged. It wasn't exactly like he could tell Kinga about his existential angst about his place in the universe, which he probably should have been too young to have anyways. For all that he was a copy of his father, Max had always been emotionally precocious, and far too worried about his purpose and his destiny for someone who couldn't even drive yet. "You should write a poem about me riding a bear. That would be super cool."

"It'll have to be a ballad," Max said. "About you leading your bear army into battle."

"Yeah! A huge battle against some dumb good guys that don't know they're about to get chewed apart," Kinga said enthusiastically. "You'll be there too, right? You have to be a general in my army. You can have the panda bear division."

"Pandas aren't scary," Max said, and she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, and neither are you."

"So what do you need either of us in your army for?"

"I want you to feel included," she chirped, throwing her arms around his waist, and he laughed and hugged her back.

"Thanks, Kinga. I'm glad to be your second banana." Clayton snorted but didn't say anything, which made it easy for the kids to ignore him. "Do you want me to get you a panda bear here?"

"You can if you want to. I'm gonna get a brown bear. And Daddy can get a black bear."

"No polar bears?" Clayton asked, and Kinga's eyes lit up.

"I forgot about polar bears. Get me a polar bear, Max?"

"Sure thing." The kid in line in front of them turned around with narrowed eyes. He was older than Kinga, probably in third or fourth grade, and he looked like a know-it-all.

"You're cheating," he accused. "You can't have your dad get you a bear."

"Uh, yeah I can? He's paying money for it. You can't tell him he can't buy one." Kinga dropped her arms from around Max and squared up with the kid, her little fists curled.

"You can't take a bear a kid should get," the boy insisted.

"A kid will get it. Me."

"That's not fair!"

"You know what's really not fair?" Kinga asked.

"...no? What?"

"This," she said, reached up and got a fistful of the boy's hair, and yanked as hard as she could. "Don't tell me what I can and can't do!" she yelled in his face.

" _Ouch_ ," the boy shrieked, and everyone in the line before and after them turned to stare. Kinga kicked the kid in the shins and he flailed his hands at her to try to fend her off. "Stop it!"

"Kinga!" Max reacted a split second before Clayton did, wrapping his arms around Kinga's middle and physically hauling her away from the boy... or attempting to, but Kinga's grip on the kid's hair was tight enough that he just ended up getting hauled along with her. "Let go of him!"

"Kinga Clayton Forrester, release him _this instant_ ," Clayton said in a voice full of thunder. Kinga opened her hand and kicked the kid away from her, and then went limp in Max's arms. The boy fell to the floor and started bawling. His mother's mouth opened and closed for a second before she started yelling too.

"How _dare_ you touch my son!"

"Your son is a dickweed!" Kinga yelled, and Max gave her a shake.

"Kinga! Stop it!"

Clayton didn't yell, but his mustache twitched over his tightly pressed lips as he grabbed his daughter by the arm and pulled her out of Max's grasp, dragging her out of the line and back toward the escalators, passing the forty or so people who'd queued up behind them. Max blinked a couple of times, looked down at the boy sobbing on the floor, and offered a stumbling apology before he followed the mad scientist and his wayward offspring down the escalator and out of the mall.

"I want my bears!" Kinga howled as Clayton pulled her toward the car, digging her heels into the pavement of the parking lot until her father picked her up bodily and tossed her over his shoulder.

"You don't deserve a bear," Clayton said sternly. "What were you thinking? You can't just fight anyone who says something you don't like!"

"Watch me!"

"You're going to get expelled from school in like a week," Max said. "That's not acceptable behavior in any classroom ever."

"He was an idiot," Kinga said sullenly as her father set her on her feet next to the car. She kicked the tire and scowled. "Stupid boys need to keep their stupid mouths shut or I'm gonna shut them for them."

"You can’t do that,” Max said. “You have to learn how to settle your disagreements non-violently.”

“That’s dumb,” Kinga said. “Violence is always the solution.”

“This is your fault,” Max said to Clayton, who opened his mouth to argue and then shut it again. “Reading her those messed-up fairy tales.”

“It’s your fault too,” Clayton said. “I told you to keep her in line.”

“I’m not her father!”

“But you are responsible for her.”

“I’m not raising her! You’re the crappy parent here, not me!” Clayton’s eyes widened behind his glasses and he started puffing up, and Max turned his back on him to focus on Kinga instead before he could start yelling too. “You’re not getting a bear today,” he said, and she snarled. “Because you messed up. We told you how to behave and you didn’t. So it’s your fault that you’re not getting a bear.”

“I thought you said it was his fault,” Kinga said, pointing at her father.

“Yeah, well, he said it was my fault, too, but neither of us are the one who pulled that kid’s hair. That was all you. And now you have to deal with the consequences of your actions.”

“Consequences suck,” Kinga said, crossing her arms and leaning back against the car with another kick to the tire. “People suck. Why do people suck so much?”

“That’s the big question,” Max said dryly. “You can’t do anything about how much other people suck. All you can do is try not to suck as a person yourself. And you kinda suck today, Kinga.” 

“Everything sucks.”

“Where did you learn this language?” Clayton asked, and Kinga gave him a blank look.

“Uh, from you and Frank? Where else would I?”

“I think you should just be glad that she’s not actually swearing,” Max said. “Because the two of you do that a fair amount too.”

“If I want parenting tips, I’ll read a Dr. Spock book. I don’t need your input.”

“Whatever,” Max said with a shrug. “Maybe you should get one of those books, cause you’ve been foisting off your responsibilities on me a lot, and I’m still just a kid.”

“Get in the car,” Clayton snapped in lieu of responding to Max’s totally true observations, and walked around the car, leaving Kinga still sulking against the back of it. Max sighed and pulled the door open to motion her in.

“Well, princess? We better get out of here before mall security comes looking for you.”

“I’ll fight them too,” Kinga said, and Max rolled his eyes and pointed in the car. Huffing, Kinga got into the car and gave Max a narrow-eyed stare as he clicked her seatbelt. “I’ll fight everyone.”

“Are you going to fight me?” Max asked. “Because I’m not going to fight you. I’m just going to tell you that I’m disappointed in you.”

“That’s worse!” She folded her arms and drew up her knees into a miserable ball as they drove away from the mall, and Max put an arm around her and patted her shoulder.

“Well, if you don’t like me being disappointed in you, you can always stop doing things that you know will disappoint me.”

“You want me to be so good,” she said with a sneer. “I’m not good. I’m evil. I do evil things.”

“You can do as many evil things as you want to. And I’ll be just as disappointed in every bad decision you make. I thought you didn’t want to make me unhappy, but I guess you were lying about that.”

“No…” Kinga made a frustrated sound and then leaned into him. “I don’t want to make you unhappy. You’re my best friend. I want you to like me.”

“You can like someone and still be disappointed in them.” 

“But I don’t want you to be disappointed in me, either.”

“Then you have to act like a reasonable person and not a spoiled brat.”

“I’m not a brat!”

“You are very much a brat,” Clayton said.

“Yeah, well, you’re a brat dad,” Kinga said, and Max put a hand over her mouth before she could go on.

“Maybe don’t antagonize your dad. Or you’ll never get another bear again in your life.”

“Ugh!” She licked his hand to try to make him let go of her, and he fixed her with a supremely disappointed look. She rolled her eyes and pushed his hand away from her mouth. “Fine! I’m sorry, okay?”

“You don’t sound like you mean it.”

“Max, come _on_.”

“When you apologize for something, you should say what you’re apologizing for, so the person knows that you know what you did wrong.”

“I’m sorry that I started a fight and said mean things about you and Daddy.”

“Apology accepted. But you didn’t say anything mean about me.”

“Well, I thought it. And I’m sorry for thinking it. I was just angry. You don’t really suck.”

“Now _that_ is a good apology,” Max said. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“I accept your apology too,” Clayton said. He glanced back at the kids in the rear-view mirror and tried not to sigh. Being called out so directly by Max was jarring, but the kid had a point: he wasn’t doing a great job at being a father, but he could do better if he made an effort. And unless he made an effort, his daughter was definitely not going to make it through public school. “I want pancakes, does anyone else want pancakes?”

“Am I allowed to have pancakes?” Kinga asked. “Even though I’m bad?”

“You said sorry, so I’ll allow it,” Clayton said. There was an IHOP up the road and the kids cheered when he pulled into the parking lot. Maybe this wasn’t the best strategic move to make, but it was reinforcing the apology, not the behavior that had necessitated it… right? Whatever. He’d read one of those parenting books and figure it out later.


End file.
